Monthly Archives: December 2016

Theres a theory that this entire universe exists in a sort of computer simulation. I first heard about this theory maybe 10 years ago.

It sounded totally kooky, until you actually think about it some more. The more I think about it, the more is seems plausible that we live in a nested universe.

When I say “Nested” I mean a file structure like this:

At some point there must be a “base reality” where things actually exist. This “base reality” will eventually develop a civilization that becomes advanced enough to simulate its own universe. Then a civilization inside the simulated universe develops IT’S own simulation and so forth.

Why would someone want to simulate a universe??

There are many reasons people would want to simulate a universe, here’s the 3 primary ones:

Reason #1: Experimentation:
It’s just cool! It would be awesome to see which possible outcomes for a universe would be best. To see what would happen in a tense situation like a war, and whether or not to start one.

You could test different physical limits. Just like we can control gravity and other parameters in a video game, we could test out different parameters in a simulation such as gravity strength per unit of mass, the speed of light (maybe make it 100,000 mph in one universe and 10,000,000 mph in another and see what happens.

Reason #2: Fun and Entertainment:
We already simulate real life in pretty vivid detail with computer games. Elon Musk said: “Assuming any rate of advancement in game technology AT ALL, gaming experiences will be indistinguishable from real life.”

Games like world of Warcraft and GTA already have millions of linked players online, and many of the characters in the game are already basic AI’s that can do critical thinking, manipulate their environments, and play in the confines of their reality. So saying people could “live inside a video game” is actually not that crazy….it seems like we’re already part of the way there.

Most games are already crude simulations of life. Racing games, skateboarding games, war games, whatever…..their goal is always to have an experience within the safety of a fake world.

You can play Super Mario and die 1,000 times in the game, but be perfectly safe in our world!

Reason #3: Profit:
Imagine being able to simulate the world and profit from the information about the future…..

Guess what?

We already do that! We simulate weather patterns to make future predictions, we simulate financial markets to make profits, we simulate stuff like housing prices to predict where they’ll go. Simulations are getting better all the time.

Currently we can predict weather patterns by emulating 1km square blocks of the world. That means one “pixel” of this simulation is actually quite huge, therefore creating innaccuracy in the simulation. Roughly every two years that “pixel” halves in size.

Some super-rough math: A kilometer is 100,000 centimeters….it will take only 15 half-ings (or about 30 years) to simulate the world down to the centimeter. That means in a basic weather simulation, it could also take into account the body heat your own body contributes to the global temperature!
Within 15 more half-ings (another 30 years or maybe less) that simulation will be at the .000001% of a centimeter accuracy.
This will only take 60 years current pace.
It’s not unthinkable that within 100 to 200 years humans will be able to simulate our entire Earth at near Planck-length accuracy!

……and this scenario is assuming computational increases will happen at the same pace they always have. Although around the 2030’s or 2040’s it’s likely computers will take over the function of designing processing power (rather than slow humans), and expand it at an almost unthinkable rate.
Being able to simulate the Earth (or certain areas or brains or humans) will help predict the future, just like if you know the location and trajectory of a bunch of pool balls on a pool table, you can easily predict where they will go when hit.

Basic games on your phone can already predict this with astonishing accuracy. Similarly, if you know the location and trajectory of every atom within a system, you can also know exactly what will happen in that system with amazing accuracy.

If the tiny computer in your pocket can already run a million of these pool table trajectory simulations at the same time, its not hard to believe that our largest supercomputer in 60 years will be able to run several atom-scale simulations of the Earth. It actually seems downright improbable that in 100 years we won’t be able to do this.

If I personally had the ability to run accurate experiments in a fake digital world without any consequences to me in the “real” world……I would do all sorts of experiments!

In one world, I would be a total douchenozzle to everyone I met, fuck over any acquaintances, and do heinous crimes all the time.

In one world, I would be ultra nice and helpful and kind and see how it plays out.

In one world, I would change the parameters of my character to be 7 feet tall and see how his life plays out.

In one world, I would change the parameters of my character to be female and see what happens.

In one world, I would have my character take an alternate path in life at a crucial turning point, for example have him go to a different college or get married really young or unexpectedly have a child.

Basically this capability to experiment on your life “if it were a certain way” could help dictate how you would live your own life.

This could be the biggest “self help” tool ever! Or it could go horribly wrong in some way we didn’t expect. I wish we could just run a simulation and see how it turns out ;-)

So a nested universe theory would state that we are a universe inside a universe inside a universe universe etc….

This structure reminds me a lot of folders in a computer drive, or a VPS machine (virtual private server) where your software believes it’s hosted on its own individual server, but really there’s hundreds of “virtual” servers on the same machine.

If our universe is a simulation on a machine, what physics says are alternate universes (multiverse theory) could actually just be the other root installs on our server! We could just be one install out of thousands on a random server rack somewhere!

We might just be “Universe-26-B-259″…and in this universe simulation everything has gone the way it has:

A billion years into Earth’s formation there was small replicating life.

A “human” life form known as “Thomas Jefferson” was once the leader of a human designated plot of cooled rock called a “country.”

The speed of light on Universe-26-B-259 is 299,792 km per second.

A force called “gravity” exists in this universe.

Disk space: 40 xenottabytes.

Processing speed: 2.8 zetahertz.

The next universe on the server might be a little different, with gravity being less per mass and the speed of light faster. These small parameter changes could mean drastically different outcomes for this install. Maybe gravity is so weak in this universe, planets are normally 10,000x the size of normal planets in our galaxy before they provide enough gravity and stability for self-replicating life to form.

There might be millions of these instances running at one time, maybe even in a few seconds each, but we interpret it in real time.

This actually isn’t that crazy, because it’s kind of what we already do in data centers. A hosting company might have thousands of servers running thousands of installs:

Is it possible to break out of a simulation?
This is not totally know yet, so let’s explore both possibilities:

You DO have the ability break out of your simulation:
This could be a Matrix-type situation where you break out of your simulation, but the real world actually just sucks and it’s just better to be in the simulation.

I’d imagine if you were playing a game, and inside the game was a sufficiently intelligent program, it would maybe figure out how to manipulate your game console.

For example if you are playing Minecraft, create an AI simulation inside, and it gets smart enough to access your computers other functions. It might be able to take it’s knowledge and create a version of it’s self in YOUR actual world.

In the computer server example in this article, imagine an entity getting smart enough, figuring out it WAS instead contained inside a simulation, and it created access to the “root” of the server. In this case, that entity would be able to access all the different universes on the server. So it seems plausible that this could happen depending on the architecture of the system.

Suppose you can NEVER break out of the simulation:
It might be impossible to break out of your simulation if the creator built it well, but you can always create your own simulation! You can make your own simulation within the simulation and make your own reality in that!

You could also just KNOW that life is just a simulation and therefore not give a f*** about what happens to you (reminds of Rick from Rick & Morty)!

Anyways, I just got to Denver and leaving the airport now, must end post, hope you enjoyed :)